D&D (2024) Why is wotc still aiming for PCs with 10 *real word* feet of range? W/o vision range penalty/limit rules for the GM?

[doctorbadwolf]

This is an issue in all combat related games. For centuries Artillery was king. No one wants to charge artillery, bows, guns. It sucks in any tactical situation. The only way to fix it in the rules is to use magic to protect yourself or pull a paizo and make rules that make no sense.
If you don't want to deal with it. don't put your players in those situations.

Yeah in my game most magic skills can defend against projectiles, and anyone can learn the magic skills. That, and magic items that deflect projectiles aren’t uncommon amongst Rangers (the group PCs are part of), exactly because no one wants to never use their magic sword.

This is mostly represented by making guns not any harder to defend against than swords, as long as you have soemthing to counter them. Combine that with the idea that greater separation from what hits the target means it’s harder to make enchantment stick (ie it’s easy with a melee weapon, a little harder with a bow where you touch the arrow as it leaves the bow, and much harder with a gun where the bullet has solid wood or metal between you and it, and you never touch it after loading the gun), and you’ve got a recipe for lots of melee people in a modern world, but still have room for gunslingers to shine by being really good with guns.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I generally am in agreement that I think this situation isn't all that common for most games. That said, I don't think any of us really know that. Certainly not for the vast swaths of gamers who aren't using published adventures.

While I'm not onboard the occasional archery duel being a problem (yes, some people can't usefully participate; dedicated archers usually have trouble contributing usefully indoors a lot. Both can just suck it up) a campaign that's set in an area of mostly forest and rolling hills is going to have a very different experience than one set in semi-arid plains. I'd expect the former to be more common than the latter, but no one can really say.

 

[Stalker0]

(yes, some people can't usefully participate; dedicated archers usually have trouble contributing usefully indoors a lot. Both can just suck it up)

not really my experience, I have rarely seen archers struggle to make shots in dungeons. And in the rare event they do, just pull out the rapier and you are still 80-90% of your power.

 

[Willie the Duck]

not really my experience, I have rarely seen archers struggle to make shots in dungeons. And in the rare event they do, just pull out the rapier and you are still 80-90% of your power.

Okay, I definitely saw this coming down the pike. Alongside the issue of ranged vs melee, we have the issue of Dex vs. Str. A Str-melee-specialist forced into ranged combat becomes a javelin-thrower (with the limited range, lower damage, and issues with drawing multiple per round* that entails) or tertiary-stat-archer, while the Dex-archer forced into melee becomes a rapier-wielder. I wouldn't say it is 80-90% because 1) donning a shield take an action, so you aren't just switching it up without consequence; and 2) you are forgoing all your archery-specific feats, fighting styles, and magic weapons (and you likely won't have the likewise of each that a Str-melee or dedicated rapier-wielder would have). Of course, with Crossbow Expert**, you can forgo this entirely and keep on shooting people with your longbow down 10'-wide, ~10-60' long corridors.
*seems in all likelihood that this part will get updated in D&D2024.
**leading to the bigger issue I have with archery moreso than the 600' range -- that all the limitations that this combat type has are wiped away with two feats, while the limitations of melee and strength-based combats really aren't given the same setup.

 

[Thomas Shey]

not really my experience, I have rarely seen archers struggle to make shots in dungeons. And in the rare event they do, just pull out the rapier and you are still 80-90% of your power.

And in most games melee specialists can pull out a bow. Again, I'm just not able to get worked up that sometimes people have to use their combat capabilities at less than full value, since both situations are uncommon.

 

[nevin]

That's exactly why the rules should fail-safe in favor of empowering gm fiat for everyone's fun when justified rather than expecting the GM to do what the rules failed to while failing secure against gm fiat. With that switch in the design goals the game changes to one where If such a player exists at a table then the onus is on that player to loop everyone else into their plan of rods from god style volley fire in a way that the gm agrees is fun to enough of the table to justify applying fiat to empower it.

im going to disagree. You can't have a rule for everything. Also gm fiat to just make it fun creates pathfinder style rules where there is no continuity, or logic to the rules at all. You end up with rules that say if you put a wall of fire in the path of a ships sails and the ship sails through it the wall can't start a fire.. But oil and tinder can, or if you anchor the wall of fire to the ship it can start a fire. Then those of us who's minds function logically just can't enjoy the game because of the illogic of the situation. It also creates a the GM is just messing with me because he doesn't like my plan. Which is less fun than an artillery battle on the plains.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Okay, I definitely saw this coming down the pike. Alongside the issue of ranged vs melee, we have the issue of Dex vs. Str. A Str-melee-specialist forced into ranged combat becomes a javelin-thrower (with the limited range, lower damage, and issues with drawing multiple per round* that entails) or tertiary-stat-archer, while the Dex-archer forced into melee becomes a rapier-wielder. I wouldn't say it is 80-90% because 1) donning a shield take an action, so you aren't just switching it up without consequence; and 2) you are forgoing all your archery-specific feats, fighting styles, and magic weapons (and you likely won't have the likewise of each that a Str-melee or dedicated rapier-wielder would have). Of course, with Crossbow Expert**, you can forgo this entirely and keep on shooting people with your longbow down 10'-wide, ~10-60' long corridors.
*seems in all likelihood that this part will get updated in D&D2024.
**leading to the bigger issue I have with archery moreso than the 600' range -- that all the limitations that this combat type has are wiped away with two feats, while the limitations of melee and strength-based combats really aren't given the same setup.

I also want to make it clear my general statements were not with the specifics of D&D5e in mind, as I don't play or run it; it was more a generic comment. If the focus of D&D combatants is such this makes the ranged/melee tradeoff more painful, I'm not qualified to judge that, but my feeling is that unless the change is pretty extreme my opinion doesn't change much.

 

[nevin]

Okay, I definitely saw this coming down the pike. Alongside the issue of ranged vs melee, we have the issue of Dex vs. Str. A Str-melee-specialist forced into ranged combat becomes a javelin-thrower (with the limited range, lower damage, and issues with drawing multiple per round* that entails) or tertiary-stat-archer, while the Dex-archer forced into melee becomes a rapier-wielder. I wouldn't say it is 80-90% because 1) donning a shield take an action, so you aren't just switching it up without consequence; and 2) you are forgoing all your archery-specific feats, fighting styles, and magic weapons (and you likely won't have the likewise of each that a Str-melee or dedicated rapier-wielder would have). Of course, with Crossbow Expert**, you can forgo this entirely and keep on shooting people with your longbow down 10'-wide, ~10-60' long corridors.
*seems in all likelihood that this part will get updated in D&D2024.
**leading to the bigger issue I have with archery moreso than the 600' range -- that all the limitations that this combat type has are wiped away with two feats, while the limitations of melee and strength-based combats really aren't given the same setup.

thing is in a game with magic, Bow become less of a problem. deflection spells, walls of fog, anything that breaks line of sight and it's gone. this is only an issue if you play in a Low Magic game. The only real way to deal with it without starting WW19 is avoid those situations. Illogical rules for fun will piss off your logical players. Logical rules that make sense will piss off your just have fun players.

 

[nevin]

I also want to make it clear my general statements were not with the specifics of D&D5e in mind, as I don't play or run it; it was more a generic comment. If the focus of D&D combatants is such this makes the ranged/melee tradeoff more painful, I'm not qualified to judge that, but my feeling is that unless the change is pretty extreme my opinion doesn't change much.

thing is it should be painful. If you know they have archers and you have to close the distance without magic, run, hide and come back and decide the time and place of the next encounter.

 

[Thomas Shey]

thing is it should be painful. If you know they have archers and you have to close the distance without magic, run, hide and come back and decide the time and place of the next encounter.

Or, in most games, a combatant learns to be competent if not profound, in both, and just deals with the situation as they get to it. There's no reason they should have to be helpless in one of the two.